Listen in as author Barbara J. King and activist pattrice jones discuss the problem of binaries imposed by human beings on themselves and other animals. Add your own ideas to the mix in the ensuing discussion.

The false human-animal binary is a foundational element of human supremacy, which justifies injuries done by humans to other animals. Other imaginary binaries, such as gender, cause grievous harms to humans. The fantasied divide between humans and “nature” has led us to the brink of climate catastrophe. Why do some humans think in binaries? How do some humans contest them? How might we learn from other animals and the larger-than-human world in order to break down injurious borders of all kinds?

In this far-ranging and multidisciplinary conversation, anthropologist and writer Barbara King and genderqueer ecofeminist pattrice jones will trade ideas and observations before opening up the discussion to other attendees.

Barbara J. King is emerita professor of anthropology at William & Mary and a freelance science writer and public speaker. Her book How Animals Grieve has been translated into 7 languages and her TED talk on animal love and grief has now received over 3 million views. As an anthropologist, Barbara taught and wrote about the anthropology and evolution of genders; more recently, she has written about being the parent of a nonbinary child. Her latest book is Animals' Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and the Wild.

pattrice jones is a cofounder of VINE Sanctuary, an LGBTQ-led refuge for farmed animals that works for social and environmental justice as well as for animal liberation. Some of pattrice’s ideas about the topic at hand can be found within the anthology entitled Ecofeminism edited by Lori Gruen and Carol J. Adams as well as in pattrce’s book The Oxen at the Intersection.

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